will of that head; and, together with
the stock-holding members, could always make the federal vote that of
the majority. By this combination, legislative expositions were given
to the constitution, and all the administrative laws were shaped on
the model of England and so passed. And from this influence we were
not relieved, until the removal from the precincts of the bank, to
Washington. Here then was the real ground of the opposition which was
made to the course of administration. Its object was to preserve the
legislature pure and independent of the executive, to restrain, the
administration to republican forms and principles, and not permit the
constitution to be construed into a monarchy, and to be warped, in
practice, into all the principles and pollutions of their favorite
English model. Nor was this an opposition to General Washington. He
was true to the republican charge confided to him; and has solemnly and
repeatedly protested to me, in our conversations, that he would lose the
last drop of his blood in support of it; and he did this the oftener and
with the more earnestness, because he knew my suspicions of Hamilton's
designs against it, and wished to quiet them. For he was not aware of
the drift, or of the effect of Hamilton's schemes. Unversed in financial
projects and calculations and budgets, his approbation of them was
bottomed on his confidence in the man.

But Hamilton was not only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bottomed on
corruption. In proof of this, I will relate an anecdote, for the truth
of which I attest the God who made me. Before the President set out on
his southern tour in April, 1791, he addressed a letter of the fourth
of that month, from Mount Vernon, to the Secretaries of State, Treasury,
and War, desiring that if any serious and important cases should arise
during his absence, they would consult and act on them. And he requested
that the Vice-President should also be consulted. This was the only
occasion on which that officer was ever requested to take part in a
cabinet question. Some occasion for consultation arising, I invited
those gentlemen (and the Attorney General, as well as I remember,) to
dine with me, in order to confer on the subject. After the cloth was
removed, and our question agreed and dismissed, conversation began
on other matters, and, by some circumstance, was led to the British
constitution, on which Mr. Adams observed, 'Purge that constitution
of its corruption,